Russia and the Communist Past

485 Pages·2015·2.73 MB·English

by  Satter, David

IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO,
AND IT NEVER HAPPENED ANYWAY
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It Was a Long Time Ago,
and It Never Happened
Anyway
Russia and the Communist Past
David Satter
Yale
UNIVERSITY PRESS
New Haven & London
3
Copyright © 2012 by David Satter.
All rights reserved.
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illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107
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Set in Galliard Oldstyle type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Satter, David, 1947-
It was a long time ago, and it never happened anyway :
Russia and the communist past / David Satter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-11145-3 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Soviet Union — History —1925-1953. 2. Atrocities — Soviet Union —
History. 3. Atrocities — Soviet Union — Public opinion. 4. Communism —
Soviet Union—History. 5. Communism—Soviet Union—Public opinion.
6. Public opinion — Russia (Federation) 7. Kommunisticheskaia partiia
Sovetskogo Soiuza— History. 8. Soviet Union. Narodnyi komissariat
vnutrennikh del—History. 9. Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoi
bezopasnosti — History. 10. Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953. I. Title.
DK267.S24 2012
947.084’2 — dc23
2011022685
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z 39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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For Raphael, Claire, and Mark
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I would have wanted to recall them all
by name
But they took the list and there’s
nowhere to find it
—Anna Akhmatova, “Requiem”
(translation by the author)
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations and Administrative Delineations
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
The Statue of Dzerzhinsky
CHAPTER 2
Efforts to Remember
CHAPTER 3
Butovo and Kommunarka
CHAPTER 4
St. Petersburg
CHAPTER 5
The Appeal of Communism
CHAPTER 6
The Responsibility of the State
CHAPTER 7
The Trial of the Communist Party
CHAPTER 8
Moral Choice under Totalitarianism
CHAPTER 9
The Roots of the Communist Idea
CHAPTER 10
Symbols of the Past
CHAPTER 11
History
CHAPTER 12
The Shadow of Katyn
CHAPTER 13
Vorkuta
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CHAPTER 14
The Odyssey of Andrei Poleshchuk
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a debt of gratitude to a number of institutions that provided
me with support: the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Smith
Richardson Foundation, the Kathryn W. Davis Foundation (now
the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation), the William H. Donner
Foundation, and the Earhart Foundation. In addition, I received
support from the Hoover Institution, where I was a research fellow
from 2003 to 2008. I would like to express my personal thanks to
Daniel McMichael, Michael Gleba, Nadia Schadlow, Marin
Strmeki, Diana Davis Spencer, Abby Moffat, Curt Winsor, Ingrid
Gregg, and John Raisian. This book could not have been written
without this timely and generous assistance.
I am currently affiliated with the Hudson Institute and the
Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International
Studies (SAIS). I would like to thank Kenneth Weinstein, the
president of Hudson, and Amir Pasic, the director of the Foreign
Policy Institute at SAIS, for their encouragement and help.
In Moscow I benefited greatly from the assistance of the
Memorial Society, in particular Arseny Roginsky, Yelena
Zhemkova, Irina Flige, Boris Belenkin, Alexander Daniel, Leonid
Novak, Nikitia Petrov, Alexei Korotaev, and Marina Grant.
The staff of the Slavic Reference Service at the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, helped me to find needed materials
both when I was a visiting professor at the university in 2008 and
after my return to Washington. I am also grateful to the research
staff of the Hoover Institution Archives for their help.
Andrew Nagorski, Gershon Braun, my sister Beryl Satter, and
my sons Raphael and Mark read early versions of the manuscript
and provided helpful suggestions and comments. Olga Printseva
took time from a busy schedule to help me with the bibliography
and notes.
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ABBREVIATIONS AND
ADMINISTRATIVE DELINEATIONS
All Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating
Cheka
Counter Revolution and Sabotage
FSB Federal Security Service
GAI State Automobile Inspection
State Inspectorate for the Security of Automobile
GIBDD
Traffic, successor in 1988 to GAI
KGB Committee for State Security
MChS Ministry for Extraordinary Situations
MVD Ministry of Internal Affairs
NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs
Joint State Political Directorate, successor to the
OGPU
Cheka
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the
RSFSR
Russian “republic” of the Soviet Union
SVR Foreign Intelligence Service
Council of People’s Commissars, the first Soviet
Sovnarkom
government
Voenkomat Military Commissariat
Best translated as “province” or “territory,” a krai is a
territorial subdivision that generally encompasses a
Krai
large area, such as Primoriye in the Far East or the
Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia.
Often similar in size to an American state, an oblast is
a territorial subdivision of the Russian Federation.
Since 2004 the governors of oblasts, as well as the
Oblast
mayors of Moscow and St. Petersburg, which are also
considered “subjects of the federation,” have been
appointed by the president.
A raion is a subdivision of an oblast or city and is
responsible for most local administration, including
Raion
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